Author: PROF. GEORGI KRUSTALAKIS
We live in a land of wonders, a land of divine madness, as the old man Porphyry said, and we are too weak to respond appropriately to what is happening here. Allow me to speak briefly about the therapeutic pedagogy of the old man Porphyry, as I call it. I call it therapeutic because it is based on the “word of power” spoken of by St. Apostle. Paul, and from this force the pedagogical guidance of the old man takes two paths: the first is on the education of the human person, and the second is the therapeutic, which I will dwell on in a little more detail.
Elder Porphyry is one of the most remarkable spiritual figures of the 20th century and, from the point of view of the history of Christian pedagogy, stands next to many great saints. In this line are the Kolivadi fathers and the philo-potassium revival with the spiritual fatherhood. Here are St. Nectarios, Amphilochius Macris, Philoteus Zervakos, Paisius of Mount Athos, James Tsalikis, Sophronius of Essex.
Elder Porphyry, as a saint and a wise man, with only a primary education, is interesting to me because of the nature of his pedagogy, which is undoubtedly the spiritual rebirth of man for life in Christ, ie the path to deification.
All great scientists theoretically describe what happens in the human soul at school or university. With the gifts he possessed through the Holy Spirit, Elder Porphyry could see into the inner world of man and see the gradual change that was taking place in the man against him, who had come to talk after a long journey or flying an airplane. , sometimes from another continent to meet him. “He travels and comes,” he often said, for example, “In a little while the Archbishop of Albania will be here, traveling and coming.” He had the ability to notice the gradual change in man on a biological and physical level, as well as on a psychological level, but mostly on a spiritual level.
Father Porphyry believed that throughout one’s life one is subject to a certain pedagogical guidance, which takes place in different places. From these places, the father loved the family the most. Especially in the post-war crisis, when society was in ruins, locked in its pathological psychological introversion, when the foundations of the family were shaken all over Europe and in the 70s there was a boom in divorce and publishing houses spewed literature on clinical psychology and psychoanalysis – it is in such difficult life circumstances that the old man said that one is enlightened in the family. Man returns to his native place, to his family, and is born again. We who work in the humanities know that it is there, in the family, that the great miracle takes place. The old man saw and knew that. In the minds of the parents, in the minds of the children, a stage rises and on it the child uploads his parents, identifies with them and lives all his life with what they gave him, or with what they deprived him of – love , smile and caress. In the second case, as psychologists say, it pushes them into a corner, ready to shoot them at any moment, throughout his life.
Elder Porphyry saw all these things. On the one hand, he loved pedagogy, he knew the process of these experiences that dominate life, and on the other hand, he penetrated into the depths of family relationships, saw what we call psychopathology – the death of a person in the family. What saves and creates good children is the life of the parents at home. “Parents must surrender to God’s love,” said the old man, “they must become saints.” One hundred percent of the father and one hundred percent of the mother are responsible for this. This is one of the great lessons of modern pedagogy, which claims that both parents participate equally in the upbringing of children.
Ladies and gentlemen, come to the big schools in Athens and find me a mother or a father who takes care of the child. In the big schools where you pay so much, there is only one question: “And where is the father?” “The father will not come,” the mother replies. The father shows up just to say, “I’m paying you here!” They are absent, their parents are gone. What if one of the parents is bad, for example the father and the mother is good? “Well, then,” said the old man, “one will light up, and so there is balance in the family.”
The old man Paisius said the same. You see how the teachings of the saints coincide: “Blessed are the parents who do not use the word ‘no’ for their children, but deter them from evil with their holy lives.” And Fr. Ephraim Katunakiiski, another great spiritual figure of our century, when we asked him, “Father, what can we say to parents, children, teachers?”, Answered with a great, beautiful prayer: “Through the prayers of our holy parents.” Are parents holy? But this was his experience: when his mother died on Good Friday, a fragrance wafted from her body because she was a holy woman. So the parents are to blame for the children’s bad behavior. Depending on what experience they have as children, their relationships with others depend on how they will behave later in life. The old man knew all this and often told his parents. This Christian pedagogy dates back to the 4th century, with the theory of personalism. The great Cappadocians learned the same thing. Scientists and famous anthropologists too. And the old man Porphyry is a sage through the Holy Spirit.
I was deeply impressed by his essentially psychoanalytic remark: “Confused parents, confused children. Confused children, confused parents. This is in fact the modern teaching in psychotherapy, the so-called theorie de communication de systeme or the systematic theory that if a child has neurotic behavior at school, if he is stressed, it is due to his experience yesterday, his experience today due to absence. of the parents or the clash between them before his eyes. It also carries this stress to school.
“Confused parents, confused children.” Elder Porphyry said that “it all starts with pregnancy.” He wanted to talk to his mother about these things, not his father. He took her hand where the pulse was felt and told her to tell her story. And he saw the family’s past, medical errors, family traumas, hidden diseases that even medicine found difficult to identify.
Today, a saint lives in Athens, brothers and sisters. She won’t let me say her name. She gave birth to twins who have a very rare syndrome – they presented it at an international seminar for psychiatrists at the Caravel Hotel, and since this syndrome has not been known in science, it was named after this family. The old man had identified him and knew their condition. This is a form of autistic behavior. Today, children tear their clothes and their mother is a saint – as the old man said, that one person will be sanctified by the two of them. One day he took her hand and said to her:
“Tell me your story slowly.”
As soon as she reached a certain point, he interrupted her and said:
“I see the trauma here.” While living with her mother-in-law, she did not want you, and this passed inwardly to the unborn children.
It was this theory – of psychodynamics – that was developed in 1965-1970 by the greatest psychiatrists, led by Bethlehem, who explained autism by the fact that it did not belong to diffuse developmental disorders and neurological problems, but was a lack or refusal of the parents of this child. He will be born, but he will not look in the eyes, he will not start talking. In America, they say that there are mothers-refrigerators who do not commit to anything, do not give their heart, as if they do not exist, do not put their soul into their relationship.
The old man liked to give an example with the following experience conducted in America. He said: In two places they took care of flowers. In one place they took very good care of the flowers, watered them and took care of them. On the other, however, there was more light, but also music. It turned out that where there was music, the roses became more fragrant, and had a better color. Then he said about mothers: What the mother feels during her pregnancy – sadness, fear, pain, stress, the same thing the embryo experiences. If the mother does not want the embryo, if she does not love it, the embryo feels it and traumas are created in its soul, which will accompany it throughout life. The opposite happens if the mother has holy feelings during pregnancy. When she is happy, calm, feels love, she passes this on to the embryo. In a mysterious way, these things are passed on to him. That is why the mother has to pray a lot during her pregnancy, to love the child, to caress her belly, to read the psalms, to sing troparions, to lead a holy life.
There is an infinite bibliography, ladies and gentlemen, which is devoted to the influence of music on the embryo, how the devices capture its reactions. Dr. Tomatis’s Ear and Life describes how a child calms down when he listens to the music of Mozart and Vivaldi. Beethoven’s loud music excites him and he starts kicking, and rock music drives him crazy, it starts spinning. The old man saw these things through his grace. We see that there is progress in this direction in the field of science as well. However, we barely touch all this while the old man went into the depths of things, because he had the Holy Spirit, his word was powerful.
So what are the pedagogical methods that the old man used? These methods are prayer, love, peace and silence. The father said that the mothers were constantly worried, constantly advising, speaking well, but they had not learned to pray. Many tips and examples cause great evil. The words hit the children’s ears as the prayer reaches their hearts. Watch out for love, the old man emphasized, it is about love with prayer to Christ, distinguishing between this love and human love. Human love is enslavement. We remember an old song that said, “For my good, for my good, the noose tightens around my neck.” This is love without reason. There are so many psychotherapists who talk about love: Scott Peck, Erich Fromm and others. But for what love?
Elder Porphyry used to say, “Parents whose child has Down syndrome and will spill soup on top of them, punch them, have sacrificial love that is long-suffering, does not seek its own, apologizes for everything.” This is the love that the great theologian Paul Evdokimov calls the mad divine love.
“We knock on the door delicately,” said Fr. Porphyry. One of our friends, Litsa, had a daughter who was preparing for university. He managed to get in and study physics. The girl suffered from astrocytoma, if you know what the disease is. This is a type of cerebellar cancer. Went to Fr. Porphyry, he saw them, comforted them, told them various things, and before they left, asked his mother:
“Tell me, child, why do you only have a girl?” Weren’t you pregnant with another child? Faces cried and ran away. The old man shouted at one of the men who were there: Todor, run, catch up with her and tell her that I don’t criticize her, I don’t criticize her… I want to support her like that, not criticize her.
You see how fine the saint was. This is how parents should pray: silently and respectfully. You should not show your anger, because it is scary to show anger and rage. This is scary for both psychology and pedagogy. The old man went one step further and said, “Don’t think anything hostile so that you don’t ignite inwardly.”
And then he advised us to see God in the face of children, to show our love for God through children. Your Eminence, dear fathers, how many mistakes I have made as a teacher who spent forty-two years at the university before leaving! If I had in mind the things the old man was saying, I would have seen as gods my first-grader or the second student sitting with his arms outstretched, and I knew he was injecting himself in the evening in the Field of Mars park, or the one who was a homosexual and sometimes behaved provocatively, or other confused, sinful, abandoned people… Then I had to give my heart, my soul and share them with them.
According to the old man, any upbringing with extremes was wrong, ie, absolute freedom, but also authoritarianism. He denied both. The old man accepted everyone. This is how psychology is taught in the person of the great father of the humanistic approach in psychology, Carl Rodgers, according to whom we should not want people to comply with our measures, and that we should not judge them by their appearance – hair, earrings, etc. . under.
One day a group of young men went to the old man and the women and girls who were in the monastery told them: No, no! You can’t go to the old man. He cannot accept you. And the young men were on motorcycles, with earrings and long hair. However, the old man, through the grace he possessed, saw them from above and cried out, “Send them up to me!” After boarding and staying with him for a while, the old man said to the others:
– Today I saw some of the purest souls.
His pedagogy was not moralistic, there were no legal complexes, but it was a pedagogy of grace.
Another time a couple went to the old man. They were my friends. My mother is a colleague of mine at the University of Crete, and my father is a famous engineer. They told Fr. Porphyry:
– Our child does not go to church like us. He comes home in the early hours of the day, objects to us… What to do?
And the old man replied:
– You are silent, hide your piety for yourself. Pray at that moment. It’s like you are well dressed and your child is wearing ragged clothes.
Another characteristic of him was the way he shared the problems of others. In psychology and pedagogy, we say that the problem must be shared. The Germans call it Empathie, Einfühlung, and the French – rencontre. The old man said the same thing: I share the problem. Did you know that in one night the old man’s hair turned white – that’s how he experienced the problem of one of his spiritual children. He had black hair in the evening and white in the morning. This is the so-called psychological time. St. John Chrysostom says: “This is especially characteristic of the teacher: to suffer with the disciples, to grieve and to weep with his children.” Because we, today’s teachers, do not cry for our children, we have lost them. Because we did not learn to kneel and turn our hair white, we lost our youth.
Elder Porphyry did not like the grievances of life. He was a nobleman! And what did he love? We talked about positive upbringing a while ago. He said: “God has given man a water inside him. Good, clean water (I think he meant conscience, will, feelings). This water has two parts: on one side of the conscience it is thorny, steep and difficult to access. On the other side there is a magnificent garden with beautiful fragrant roses. We don’t have to fight the thorns so much. Note: I say “so much” so you don’t get me wrong. We just have to direct the water to the roses and when they smell good, the weeds will automatically disappear.
In pedagogy, we call weed control a “negative upbringing,” but the old man goes one step further. He was talking about a wrong upbringing, which is also called negative. His words are very good. Hear them: “Many mothers do not understand and therefore raise their children negatively – through denial. Mothers who are constantly leaning over their children, oppress them, overprotect them, they fail in their efforts. When you are constantly over someone’s head, he reacts to this overprotection with selfishness. On the other hand, he spoke of failed fathers.
He especially disliked the supposedly pious people. These are church people who want to make their children supposedly good Christians, but in appearance, not in essence. He said that in such families there was an atmosphere of hypocrisy that killed peace and killed relationships.
But most of all, he condemned two things. The first is what we do: today I have money, I will make my child a doctor or an engineer. Do you understand? We pass on to our child our hidden desires for public prestige so that others do not say that we have failed. Listen to what the old man said to a mother: “You are guilty, you are guilty! What to do the child? Pressure, pressure during all these years: be the first, be the first, so as not to embarrass us, to become a great person in society. Now the child is broken and wants nothing. It’s your fault you took him away from you.
Elder Porphyry also said, “You create selfish and vain, confused people. Successful parents are those who are humble with the garment of divinity, who are not angry, but simply embrace their children. Note that the old man did not deny the encouragement, but not the excessive ambition. He said the same thing to the teachers: “We, the teachers, have failed. The teacher officiates in class. I was late to understand this thing: prayer and sanctification. Invoke divine grace. Love in prayer.
He also said, “Do you know what the presence of Christ means? It means preparing from the evening to give new knowledge and new books to children. This is Love. And if you have kalpazans in the class who torture your life, and you do not want to enter the class, then as soon as you enter, embrace the children with prayer. And as you embrace them in prayer, say of each one of them, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Say this prayer for every selfish person in the class, for every naughty child, and then everyone will calm down and come to hug you. This is the most important”.
And he used to say to university professors and teachers, “Do you take communion? Well, after partaking of the sacrament, let Christ enter the hour on Monday. You don’t need a lot of words. ” That was the tip!
And I will end with something indicative. Many people with cancer went to the holy old man. I personally know two artists who had advanced cancer. The old man said, “Go and see the sea. The endless blue heals.
There was a young man from Novo Faliro. A native of Istanbul, he was an artist and a lawyer, he wanted to commit suicide. One day he heard the phone ring. It was the old man Porphyry who told him:
“I am Father Porphyry.” I’ll see you again, but listen to me now. Go for a while in Faliro, walk along the beach and then walk to the monastery to talk.
The young man changed his mind. They met the old man. He is now a priest in Athens, in one of the central temples – this artist, Constantinople, aristocrat. Now there is cancer, in the last stage…
I will end with a story from 1986. It was a Saturday, with dark clouds in the sky. Mrs. Athena was twenty-five years old with Fr. Porphyry, wherever he went – in Gyumri and here. He would send her away and say, “There’s a divorce,” or “Someone’s getting out of jail there,” “Bring money in there,” “There’s a family in danger, run.” She was doing missionary work. So that day they were talking and she was telling him about the social pastoral work they were doing together. Suddenly he said to her:
– Stop it. The phone is ringing. A woman from Larissa calls us.
She picked up the phone and turned it on to a speaker to teach Mrs. Athena.
“Oh, how are you?”
And the mother’s voice was heard:
“I’m crying, Father, because I’m afraid my girl is depressed.”
Her daughter was in London, it was the weekend, the weather was gloomy and the girl’s fear was growing. She called her mother and said, “Mom, I can’t stand it. Come and get me, I will die here in London.
Old Porphyry was silent for a moment.
– Father, what should I do ?! Cried the mother.
He thought for a moment, immersed himself in prayer, and after a while answered her:
“Please, please, please.”
The mother may not be satisfied with this answer and hung up. The old man fell silent again. Suddenly his face lit up and he said,
“Ah, God heard me and sent a very nice friend to this girl.” Now listen to what they will tell us on the phone.
Indeed, the phone rang again. The mother of the depressed girl told him:
“Father, my daughter called from where she was all alone and told me that a very beautiful, colorful bird had landed on the window and was knocking on the glass very boldly.” She has come to life and is now brave.
And the old man said:
“The good God sent her a good friend who would be with her until she finished her studies.” This chick will keep her company. He will open the window, let him in, talk to him, caress him, read his psalms, sing him songs, he understands. They will get along well. In the morning I will leave him for half an hour to fly in the dark skies of London, he will not be lost. He will come back.
And so it happened. The girl graduated and then the bird flew into the sky and never returned. It was the Spirit of God. The holy old man in his own way educated and healed. Such was his therapeutic pedagogy.
My dear brothers, the holy old man had said that he would always be with us when we sought him. “When he dies, I will come to you very soon. I am fast, I will come quickly.
And he proved it to be true. I wish you with all your soul to leave in your souls a place for Christ, for the Holy Mother of God and for the saints. The old man doesn’t want much.
He wants a little bench in the soul, in our lives. Call him tomorrow night. It will come to your cancer, to the child who has exams, it will come to the foundations of your family that are shaking.
